Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two first hands-on!
By Chris Ziegler 
posted April 12th 2010 3:07PM
posted April 12th 2010 3:07PM
We know that the One is positioned as the slightly lower-end device on account of its 5 megapixel cam (the Two has 8) and half the internal storage, but we actually came away liking it more -- it's the only one of the two that looks truly unique, because the Two just looks like any old landscape slider smartphone (not to say that's necessarily a bad thing). The front of both devices is graced with a single metallic button to offset an otherwise clean glossy black bezel -- this button functions as Back, not Home, so if you're multiple levels deep into the UI you'll only be taken back one. You can still hold the button down to get back to the home screen, fortunately, and both the One and Two have dedicated camera buttons -- Microsoft's making no secret of the fact that image and video capture are a huge push for these devices.
Follow the break for more thoughts, shots, and video!
The basic meat-and-potatoes parts of the user interface -- the Loop, the Spot, and so on -- work pretty smoothly, without any hiccups. The browser stuttered in places, but it wasn't unusably bad; hopefully this is something that'll improve over time, since the Kins support over-the-air updates. Maybe our favorite part of the device, though, was Zune Pass, which streams over WiFi or 3G. Yes, you heard us right: you can search for and stream basically anything out of the Zune Pass collection over Verizon's EV-DO, then play it in the background while you go about your merry way. It worked really well, and the Zune UI seems to translate pretty well onto a display as small as the One's tiny QVGA unit.
I like the general Sidekick + Zune concept and I think it's good they're using different product lines to go after specific demographics rather than Apple's one size fits all mentality. These definately aren't phones I would buy personally (I'll be heading for either WP7 or Android if I don't stick with BlackBerry) but I can see the appeal if marketed properly/
Teens don't need games on their phones. They 360s and PSPs.
Exactly what Kids now days order.
"and we're not sure what to think"
followed by a detailed account of what you think about the hardware, nice.
lmao... i am the only one who noticed the brochure at :35?... i dunno if it's just my perverted mind, but theres just something too funny there..
The Kin One is strangely attractive because I've long desired a non-storm blackberry sans wasted thumb board space, plus, no swiveling like the Nokia Twist and larger too.
It's too bad the K1 is otherwise useless to me. And such wasteful packaging too, even if paper.
wtf is it, a cellphone?
With a phone that small, and all the social networking, streaming music, and video recording, how will the battery hold up??
I bet the battery life will just be terrible.
Battery manufacturers need to step on the gas. Too little is being done in that field compared to how fast phones are maturing.
interesting yes. my cell phone of choice? f*** no.
Kin One And Kin Two. What about Kin Hell?